


Neptcon Ventured

by demiksmith



Category: Original Work
Genre: Futuristic, Gen, Original Character(s), Original work - Freeform, Science Fiction, could be horrible, from high school, not too sure, spacey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:41:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiksmith/pseuds/demiksmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth has been ruined in the hands of man. With no other choice but to flee to (hopefully) more hospitable places, Stefan Merano and his vanguard search the universe for a new place to call home. We are a foolish, arrogant race. And we are not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neptcon Ventured

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in grade ten. Thought it should see the light of day. Could be very bad ahah, it probably is rather inaccurate, and probably has spelling/grammar etc errors.
> 
> Some warnings; potentially graphic scene? I don't know if it would be that bad, but thought I should point it out just in case someone somewhere finds it gross/triggering etc. Enjoy!

The designated landing zone loomed into sight, both through the tinted glass of the windshield, and the radar. The crew was tense, knowing fully well that they were unprepared for anything that could happen in this foreign territory. The small terrain robots sent on previous missions were always recovered mutilated, wires sticking out of their sleek metal skins, sparking and twitching their cold insect-like limbs. The bodies, although destroyed beyond repair, were able to give the researchers an idea as to what waited for them.

Every attempt to recover the video feed data from the robots’ corpses failed, as though their attackers had a sense of the meaning behind their presence. Each person aboard the ship knew that well. They also knew that human skin was nowhere near the hardness of the robots’ shells.

“Prepare for touchdown. Everyone to their places. Arms at the ready. Remember, breach and clear. Go! Go!” The squadron leader squawked the commands over the telecom, his image shivering as the ship landed. As soon as the words were spoken, the offensive unit of the tactical team were out the door, assault rifles at the ready.

“He said breach and clear, guys. Remember. Hold fire, on my word. Steady, parallel formation. Watch for anything.” Stefan, the second in command, spoke in a low voice that carried to his soldiers. “Set up defensive perimeters. I want a scout team out within the hour. Move it!”

Once the initial movements were completed, the rest of the squad, the defence unit, came out to help.

Stefan walked the edge of the defensive camp, his assault rifle hanging casually across his back. He knew that they had been sent as a test, a test to decide the level of threat held within this planet’s lush forests. It had been the perfect substitute for the people of Earth, after they successfully destroyed everything Earth had to offer. The once coldest places on Earth maintained a steady 40° Celsius, while in the warmest places, going out during the day meant being boiled alive. He had heard stories of people struggling to find hiding places before the murderous sun rose. Those who were lucky enough to find shade had the opportunity and obligation to watch their fellow humans boil, to watch the skin bubble and melt, to hear the screams of terror and pain.

  

The predictions made by scientists and researchers suggested that Earth had  at least one more century to live before becoming a burning waste, before the air became too toxic to breathe. Their aim was too high.

Hence Stefan and his team, sent to a planet that was home to things that ate metal terrain robots, and seemed to be intelligent enough to remove all data from the corpses. If they could manage that, they would be able to plot.

The increasing zip lock of time left on Earth pressured his squadron to deem the planet Neptcon as safe, and hospitable. He knew it would never be. Whether the human nature of war and ultimate destruction came to be stronger than the intentions of the natives of the planet, or the natural world slowly choked off human civilization, he had a gut feeling that anything done here would not end well.

Striding over to one of the perimeter points, he glanced at the men and women at the post. Set up at the edge of the clearing, the group clustered around the radar were battle hardened soldiers. Though none of them had ever been exposed to a place like this, they were adapting well. It was good to assume that all things are innocent and benevolent, but these men and women were as aware as any that all that could change in a matter of moments. Nodding in greeting, they went back to watching the terrain, and the radar. Squatting next to the group, Stefan looked out at the heavy forests that surrounded the clearing. It reminded him of the pictures of the Amazon rainforests he had lining his hallways in his apartment. Of course, the pictures were decades old, as what used to be the rainforests were now a burning wasteland.

The trees here were huge mammoths, thick enough to leave a good foot or so of space between a man’s hands, should he wrap his arms around it. Thick foliage hung down, vines draping across the sturdy boughs. Everything was green. Grasses and strange fruit-bearing plants sprung up in the shadows of the giant trees. Those grasses and plants would be waist-high on a man, and offered shelter to anything that had malicious intents.

“I want a team to clear all immediate obstructions within fifty feet of each perimeter station. Have all involved carry battle rifles.”  The BR55HB SR Battle Rifle would offer the usage of a scope, and short bursts of fire. That, accompanied by the assault rifle, would offer back up protection. It was always good to be a little paranoid. “Move out, within the hour. This needs to be done before nightfall.” Standing up, he moved quickly to the center of the camp, repeating the commands again.

  

His team moved quickly, efficiently, completing his orders in under an hour. Stefan walked through the camp, making sure everything was in order. The soldiers had been trained well. Each tent was placed for efficiency, everything spartan and bare. They did not plan to be staying on this planet long. At least, Stefan hoped not.

Several days passed, and everything moved along at a clipped pace.  The clearing began to take on the form of an organized colony, men and women moving among themselves with purpose. A calm air had come over the camp, as people began to believe that Neptcon offered no threat. Stefan’s scouts had all returned, on time and when expected. None had anything to show as hostile. Still, he remained suspicious.  _This is too good to be true, just wait,_  he often caught himself thinking. Pensive, he decided to join the next scouting team he sent out.

It was early, the first of three suns barely reaching over the top of the trees. Stefan and ten scouts were seated around a small fire, eating a quick breakfast of toast and porridge, with only water to wash it down. Glancing around to check that the others were finished eating, he stood, and kicked dirt over the fire.

“Let’s go.” With that, they stood, and followed Stefan into the surrounding forest.

Neptcon had a relatively mild humidity, but as soon as they entered the trees, Stefan could feel the immediate difference. Although darker underneath the thick boughs of the ancient trees, the temperature must have raised by fifteen degrees. All of the scouts were well armed, as per regulation. Battle rifles, assault rifles, frag grenades, and SMGs. Stefan was confident that they were well prepared for the worst case scenario; for the inevitable. Fragmentation grenades, or frags, would be useless in the thicker strands of trees, but the noise, combined with the smoke and shrapnel, would be a useful enough distraction. The SMGs, or submachine guns, were the brute force of the scouts. Only five scouts carried them, as they were rather bulky. Never meant as forefront weaponry, the scouts only carried them for back up, should the worst case scenario happen. Stefan began to realize that he was thinking in the worst case scenario mindset.

“Move out, parallel formation. Stay in view, I don’t want to lose track of any one.” Shouldering his assault rifle, he reached for his battle rifle. “Don’t trust anything. If you see anything out of the ordinary, call it.” He had insisted on them all donning full battle gear, including helmets. Many mumbled over it, but the severity of the situation allowed Stefan to get away with such an order.

  

Low ferns, unknown plants, and tall grasses covered much of the ground. Moving out, pushing forward into the landscape, all were alert. An hour passed, the growing humidity making Stefan question his notion for full gear. Reaching over his shoulder to adjust his ammunitions belt, he stumbled over something. Hidden by the long grasses and other plants, Stefan struggled to see what he had caught his toe on. Pushing the plants out of the way, he knelt down. Two others noticed, and motioned for the rest of the team to come over. Stefan moved the plants, grabbing his belt knife to slice through the bases of the plants that were in the way and couldn’t be moved. Finally, he exposed what had tripped him:  a piece of stone outcropping. Glancing up at the others, he looked back down at the culprit.

Motioning for them to help, he began removing more and more vegetation from the stone. Soon, several feet of the stone was uncovered. It began to be clear to them that the stone was not a part of the natural landscape. It seemed to be part of a structure; a very large structure.

Glancing up toward the tree shrouded sky, Stefan felt a moment of panic.  _What time is it,_  he had lost all track of time. Looking at one of the scouts assisting him in clearing off the stone, he inquired to the time.

“The third sun should have just passed the tree line back at the base,” The young man looked worriedly at his captain, feeling his unease.

“Someone mark this exact location down. I don’t want to lose it. We head back to the base now. We already stayed out too late.” With that, Stefan set to ensuring all of his scouts were accounted for, and ushered them back the way they came.

The scene they arrived to was something from one of Hollywood’s horror movies. The base was in ruins. Tents torn down, some on fire, scattered across the clearing. Blood stains covered the ground, the only hint that a body had ever laid there. Broken dishes, pots and pans, lay scattered, some with bite marks. As for the ship, all that remained was the broken bones of a piece of equipment that was acclaimed to be ‘the most suitable weapon of the recent day and age’. Wires hung out of huge gaping holes, sparking and waving around dangerously. Where the window had originally been, the tinted glass had been ripped from the metal corpse. Pieces of the shiny bullet-proof glass lay like deadly flowers around the camp. The landing legs of the ship had been entirely torn off, all but one missing. Nothing in the camp stirred.

 

 Stefan stared, slack-mouthed. He had barely been gone four hours and not very far from the base. He should have heard the sounds of fighting. The scouts should have heard the sounds of fighting, especially those equipped with alternated genes. It was a new science, and experimental, but so far the test subjects had performed fine, being able to hear noises that were out of the ordinary from several miles away. Until today.

Fear crept into Stefan, as he suddenly wondered if the units of distance and measurement applied to this place.

Realizing that he needed to be a leader, he shouted the orders.

“Arms at the ready! Be prepared for anything. Eyes sharp, I want to know if you see anything. Move out!” The scouts moved forward, through the desecrated camp. They kept to the military standard parallel formation, each person walking abreast of each other. It allowed for more ground to be covered, and called for no backtracking. According to military standards, each person was supposed to be at a maximum of three feet from the next in line. As a battle tactic, it was good on many sides. Should the team face an offensive hostile, they could fall back into a loosely structured inverted V shape, allowing for all members to fire. If the team faced a defensive hostile, the parallel structure offered them a point blank shooting range, without having to add comrades in front of them as a worry.

They moved slowly through the camp, staring with glazed eyes at the wreckage. Shocked as they were, all present were battle hardened soldiers. Scouts did not survive long in battle if they were not skilled at their jobs. The men and women Stefan had with him were probably the very best scouts alive.

“Lyri, take point, loose V formation, I want to get through this junk yard as fast as we can. If you see supplies, take them, but don’t eat or drink them. They could be contaminated. Don’t stray too far from the group, and never be alone. There are enough of us here to be paired up, so that’s how it’s going to have to be. If there are any tents or shelter units that are unharmed, take them as well. I have a feeling we are going to have to set up a new camp.” It was the most Stefan had said all day, and probably more then he would say again. He needed to ensure that all of his scouts were fully aware of the now hostile situation they had found themselves in. It would do no good if they all slacked off and joked around. Not now, with more than three quarters of his soldiers missing.

  

Concern suddenly washed over him, and he felt his knees shake. The men and women of the camp were part of his family. The year long journey here had made every one form a bond, regardless of previous stances. As he walked on, his eyes locked onto a patch of bloodstained ground. It was big enough for a body to have laid there. He looked closer.

“Halt. Every one, over here. Tell me, am I hallucinating, or does this bloodstain have droplets leading away from it?” His remark was met with silence. If his statement was true, then either the body had been picked up and carried away, or the body had picked  _itself_  up and walked away. There was too much blood on the ground to suggest that the person had survived whatever wound they had taken.

His mind skittered away from that notion. It was too Hollywood of an answer. If that even meant anything anymore.

“Sir – ” A loud siren-like noise cut off whatever Lyri was about to say. Looking up quickly, Stefan watched her be thrown away as a result of the force of impact. Not knowing what hit her, and absolutely sure he did not want to experience it first hand, he and the others dove to find cover.

As he rolled behind the skeletal remains of a nearby tent, the noise came again. This time, a tent just down the row from his was sent flying. Watching, he saw the tent shrivel, and where the projectile had struck it, it melted. Disbelief warred with fear, and Stefan could see the same battle being fought in his comrades’ eyes.

Two of the scouts had found meagre shelter behind the shell of one of the service tents. To Stefan’ horror, he saw an alien shape approach them. Tall, taller than a man, it moved about on its hind legs, hoisting an alien weapon in its arms. Ammunition belts circled the torso, and what must have been grenade belts wrapped around its waist. Its face reminded him oddly of a mixture of walrus and insect, the skin a rotten yellow. Three fingered hands griped the stock of the gun, while its apparently eyeless face moved back and forth. It had found their scent. With a roar, the beast charged forward, knocking the tent aside as though it were made of paper, and began firing at his soldiers.

The weapon the beast had made the siren noise as it charged, and released round upon round at the two scouts. Made of odd silvery material, it contained a plasma-like substance that glowed when the beast fired. Aiming down, the two scouts were pushed into the ground, the sprays of blood the only sign that they had ever been there.

  

The snout of the beast wriggled, and its head turned from side to side as it locked onto different scents. Stiffening suddenly, it turned away from Stefan and shuffled to the other side of the camp, its mouth and noise quivering. Counting to five in his head, Stefan was about to rise and go see what remained of the two scouts, when little potato-like things hopped and bounced into view. Raising a hand to signal ‘hold your fire’, Stefan watched the new comers. From their appearance alone he was able to derive that they were most likely a parasite species of this planet. Similar to crustaceans in structure, it also had a striking resemblance of that of a squid. Queasily, Stefan watched them hop over to the freshly killed scouts. Several of the creatures disappeared into the crater that the larger beast’s weapon had made.

Still watching, Stefan motioned for the others to be quiet. Suddenly, hands reached out of the crater, pulling the body up with it. Stefan gaped in horror and disgust. Though clearly dead, the scout that had been shot to the point of mutilation had risen from his deathbed. His abdominal cavity hung open, as though someone had played a cruel game of piñata with his body. As for the squid-like alien that had hopped down into the hole, Stefan could see it clearly, resting among the tattered remains of the man’s entrails. Shortly after the corpse stood up, the second scout rose as well. It appeared that he too, had suffered the same fate of reanimation.

Suddenly he knew where all the bodies of his soldiers were. Visibly paling, he gestured to his remaining scouts, pointing them toward the husk of their ship. Someone needed to know what was happening here, before the convoys of people arrived. The moment he had realized that there were hostiles on this planet, Stefan knew he and his remaining scouts would not survive. So their mission had been suicidal at the start, for he had known, thanks to a certain gut feeling, that they were not alone.

Stefan knew they would not last long, and so he wasted no time. Glancing over the top of the tent to make sure the route to the gutted ship was clear, he motioned to his soldiers. He and four others sprinted to the ship, while two remained behind to cover them.

“Fix this, do something. We need to make sure this is sent through. I won’t have innocent people shipped here for their death. It isn’t right. Hurry, hurry!” He rummaged through the computer desk, trying to see if anything important had been removed. His biggest fear was a repeat of the terrain robots: all electronic things that were important, eaten or removed.

Luck was on their side, at least for the moment. He found what he had been looking for. As the scouts began a quick dialog slide to match the video feed they were sending back to home base, Stefan reached for the back of his neck. Inserted there, in a thin metal slot, was a memory drive. It held every emotion, thought, idea, notion, sight, everything. He was, in effect, removing his brain. He got ready to give it over to the scouts, looking up sharply as another siren noise went off. Cursing softly, he removed the hardware from his neck.

 

SYSTEM DISCONNECT PENDING

“That’s all that was on there, Captain. It doesn’t look good,” The lieutenant muttered, scowling darkly at the screen. Half machine or not, Stefan Merano had been a good soldier, a good leader.

“That was weeks old, Lieutenant. Things could have changed by now. At the very least, we will send live feed terrain robots,” The captain nodded to him, and left, discussing the possibility of deploying a fleet of live feed terrain robots to Neptcon.

He was an ignorant fool, but politically smart. He didn’t know what had happened to Stefan and the squadron sent to Neptcon, even though he just saw it with his own eyes. The lieutenant was angry that the man could be so naive as to not notice the starting of a war. A war with soldiers of unimaginable breeds. He hoped he would not live to see the day Earth went to war with the species of Neptcon, but he did not let it go far. As it stood, he would be the one to lead the people of Earth to battle something they were not prepared for. Oh, how he would weep for them in the days to come. If only they knew.

 


End file.
